IN 2016, on the back of its popularity at the Farnham Community Games, the Farnham Sports Council started a boccia club for the community.

With Waverley Borough Council’s support, they secured a venue at the David Lloyd Club and all they needed was the equipment, the participants and the crucial volunteers to sustain the club.

For many years, boccia had simply been played around the world as a leisure activity until it was introduced at the 1984 New York Paralympic Games. It’s now a regular Paralympic Games sport.

Similar in concept to the French game, petanque, it is a game of strategy and accuracy that was originally designed to be played by people with cerebral palsy. But it is now played by people with a much broader range of disabilities and the sport is popular with able-bodied people, too.

Just over a year on from the humble beginnings, younger members of the new club have just taken part in their first regional competition, held at Crawley against other boccia clubs in the South East of England region.

Club coach, Trevor Seal, said: “For many of them, it was their first competition and they were all a bit nervous but once they started playing they did really well, and several of them won medals.

“We are proud of them all. We even have more talent in the pipeline as several young players, such as Lottie Maplethorpe and Darcy Hastings didn’t take part this time. It’s a growing club and we’d love to have even more players join us.”